Major Orlov sat straighter, her interests obviously engaged. “Marten Kluge spoke to you, verbally?”
Stick nodded miserably. He was a good actor.
Major Orlov scowled and snapped her thick fingers. One of her red-suited killers stepped forward.
“Give me your agonizer.”
The man placed a small disc with a dial into her huge hand. She twisted the setting onto high as the two thugs swung behind Stick and held him fast.
“Mannerisms annoy me. They indicate frivolity.”
She placed the agonizer to his neck. Stick arched his back and winced horribly, but he made no noise other than a croak. Finally, she removed the agonizer and handed it back to the thug.
She addressed Marten. “What did you say to him?”
Marten glowered at the wall.
“My patience is not unlimited, Mr. Kluge.” After a moment, Major Orlov pursed her lips. She asked Stick, “What did he say to you?”
“It don’t matter.”
Her tone turned glacial. “I will determine that.”
“He called me a dirty gook.”
“Ah… a racial epithet?”
“Yeah.”
She swung back to Marten. “That is a serious crime, Mr. Kluge. You shall spend ten days in the tank unless you admit to your racial bigotry and make a formal apology to everyone in squad eleven.”
The glassy look left Marten’s eyes. He grew aware of the conversation, playing it back in his mind, as it were. He glanced at Stick, who wouldn’t meet his gaze. A small, tight smile played on Marten’s lips.
“And what do you find so amusing?” asked the major.
Marten fixed his gaze upon her.
“Here, Mr. Kluge, insolence is a costly attitude to sustain.”
Major Orlov could hurt him, hurt him very much. Despite that, Marten let his contempt for her freeze onto his face.
She flushed. She leaned forward and deliberately slapped him across the face. Marten checked his impulse to leap upon her. Instead, he laughed.
She bolted upright, seemed on the verge of falling upon him and then whispered, “Into the tank with him this very instant.”
8.
Nine-foot tall glass cylinders lined the sides of a sterile auditorium. In the middle stood what seemed to be an emergency medical operating theater, complete with green-clad doctors and nurses. Several interns strolled around a working cylinder.
As he was marched past them, Marten saw green-colored water pouring into the cylinder from the top, splashing upon a naked woman inside. The water swirled up to her thighs. Drenched and wretched she worked the lever of a hand-pump built into the cylinder. At every stroke, water exited via a tube and drained out through the auditorium floor.
Marten’s scrotum tightened and he stumbled.
From behind, Major Orlov steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. He felt her breath on his neck.
“Ten days in there, Mr. Kluge. Either that or speak to me now.”
Marten calculated the fall of the water. It wasn’t gushing, but it was constant. He felt dizzy, lightheaded. He considered the medical unit. They wouldn’t let him die, it seemed. So he steeled himself for the worst and kept repeating in his mind how he’d never give in.
“Foolish,” said Major Orlov, perhaps noting the set of his jaw. “There are constant miscalculations. Often the trainee dies of heart failure. Sometimes the pumping malfunctions and more water pours into the tank than was required. Before anyone can draw the trainee to safety, he or she drowns.”
A small, balding doctor with a clipboard stepped up. He kept blinking his eyes rapidly. He said hello and explained the pump to them, the water temperature—icy—and that at times “elements” were added to the tank to increase the discomfort and thereby help prod the recalcitrant to speedier reform.
“Any questions then?” asked the doctor when he had finished.
Marten stared rigidly ahead.
“He refuses to communicate,” Major Orlov explained.
“Indeed? Interesting.”
“Incorrect, Doctor. It is social maladjustment.”
“True, true.” The doctor, with his right cheek twitching, indicated that Marten should enter the tank. Two beefy interns rolled a platform beside the cylinder. They ripped off Marten’s tunic, attached a harness, lifted him with a winch and released him into the nine-foot tube.
An intense feeling of shame filled Marten. Distorted through the glass he saw Major Orlov and the doctor inspecting him, Orlov pointing at his privates. Marten turned his back on them and studied his surroundings. The glass was cold and the floor was wet and slimy under his bare feet. Above, the interns slotted a stopper over the top.
“Are you ready, Mr. Kluge,” the doctor asked over an intercom.
Marten refused to acknowledge him.
“Hmm, I see. Well, in your case, Mr. Kluge, the simple expedient of verbal communication will end your stay. Otherwise—” the doctor glanced at his clipboard. “Ten days?” he asked Major Orlov. “Is that warranted?”
“You exceed your authority, Doctor.”
“No one has survived ten days in the tank. It’s physically impossible.”
Marten glanced over his shoulder at them.
Major Orlov smiled as her eyes lingered on his buttocks. “Yes, that gained your attention. You are a madman, Mr. Kluge. This time you will have to talk.”
“I must protest,” said the doctor, his cheek twitching.
Major Orlov raised her eyebrows.
After a moment, the doctor backed away, his tic worsening. He turned and strode to his place at the medical center.
Major Orlov regarded Marten once more. “Ten days, Mr. Kluge. My estimation is that you’ll break in three.” She waited a moment longer, glanced at the muscles of his back, then turned and made a gesture to someone.
Water gurgled overhead. Marten glanced up as green-colored water splashed him in the face. He groaned. His facial bones ached as if someone had slammed a board against his face. The water swirled at his feet, crept up his ankles and lapped at his calves faster than he’d expected. He grasped the lever. It was a little higher than waist level. The pump resisted movement. He strained, and he found the angle awkward. Then water sluiced out of the tube at the bottom. He worked faster. More water drained away. He pumped as fast as he could. It was hard, and soon he was gasping. By then, the water was no longer icy.
The intercom came on and Orlov’s voice was insidious. “How long do you think you can keep that up, Mr. Kluge?”
Startled, Marten saw that the major still watched him.
“I must admit that you have an excellent physique. Perhaps there are other ways for you to exit the tube.”
Marten ignored her. The idea of sexually wrestling with the major, a brutal woman lacking all femininity, nauseated him.
So he pumped, and time soon lost all meaning. His muscles ached and after each stroke, he yearned to quit. The hours grew second by agonizing second. Sweat poured. His shoulders, arms and torso felt as if they were afire. His eyes burned from lack of sleep. His stomach growled and gurgled by the minute—he was ravenous.
